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For anyone who is thinking about Darwin,
Creation, evolution, religion, and related
issues, Alfred Russell Wallace's obituary on
Darwin is worth reading in full. Here's the
beginning and end to tempt you to read the whole
thing.
The website, The Complete Work of Darwin
On-Line, gives you the full searchable text and
the facsimile of Century Magazine's text and
illustrations. http://darwin-online.org.uk
The website has been invaluable to me while
working on the section of the Linnaeus & America
exhibition that deals with Darwin and Linnaeus.
(If you are in Philadelphia this spring, please
come see the show!)
Karen Reeds
Guest Curator
Come into a New World: Linnaeus & America (February 15-July 1, 2007)
American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia
215--389-1776, [log in to unmask]
http://www.americanswedish.org/ Free parking!
[log in to unmask]
====================
http://darwin-online.org.uk
RECORD: Wallace, A. R. 1883. The Debt of Science
to Darwin. Century Magazine 25, 3 (January):
420-432.
p 420
THE DEBT OF SCIENCE TO DARWIN.
THE great man so recently taken from us had
achieved an amount of reputation and honor
perhaps never before accorded to a contemporary
writer on science. His name has given a new word
to several languages, and his genius is
acknowledged wherever civilization extends. Yet
the very greatness of his fame, together with the
number, variety, and scientific importance of his
works, has caused him to be altogether
misapprehended by the bulk of the reading public.
Every book of Darwin's has been reviewed or
noticed in almost every newspaper and periodical,
while his theories have been the subject of so
much criticism and so much dispute, that most
educated persons have been able to obtain some
general notion of his teachings, often without
having read a single chapter of his works,-and
very few, indeed, except professed students of
science, have read the whole series of them. It
has been so easy to learn something of the
Darwinian theory at second-hand, that few have
cared to study it as expounded by its author.
It thus happens that, while Darwin's name and
fame are more widely known than in the case of
any other modern man of science, the real
character and importance of the work he did are
as widely misunderstood....
p 432...Let us consider for a moment the state of
mind induced by the new theory and that which
preceded it. So long as men believed that every
species was the immediate handiwork of the
Creator, and was therefore absolutely perfect,
they remained altogether blind to the meaning of
the countless variations and adaptations of the
parts and organs of plants and animals. They who
were always repeating, parrot-like, that every
organism was exactly adapted to its conditions
and surroundings by an all-wise being, were
apparently dulled or incapacitated by this belief
from any inquiry into the inner meaning of what
they saw around them, and were content to pass
over whole classes of facts as inexplicable, and
to ignore countless details of structure under
vague notions of a "general plan," or of variety
and beauty being "ends in themselves"; while he
whose teachings were at first stigmatized as
degrading or even atheistical, by devoting to the
varied phenomena of living things the loving,
patient, and reverent study of one who really had
faith in the beauty and harmony and perfection of
creation, was enabled to bring to light
innumerable hidden adaptations, and to prove that
the most insignificant parts of the meanest
living things had a use and a purpose, were
worthy of our earnest study, and fitted to excite
our highest and most intelligent admiration.
That he has done this is the sufficient answer to
his critics and to his few detractors. However
much our knowledge of nature may advance in the
future, it will certainly be by following in the
pathways he has made clear for us, and for long
years to come the name of Darwin will stand for
the typical example of what the student of nature
ought to be. And if we glance back over the whole
domain of science, we shall find none to stand
beside him as equals; for in him we find a
patient observation and collection of facts, as
in Tycho Brahe; the power of using those facts in
the determination of laws, as in Kepler; combined
with the inspirational genius of a Newton,
through which he was enabled to grasp fundamental
principles, and so apply them as to bring order
out of chaos, and illuminate the world of life as
Newton illuminated the material universe.
Paraphrasing the eulogistic words of the poet, we
may say, with perhaps a greater approximation to
truth :
"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God
said, 'Let Darwin be' and all was light."
Alfred R. Wallace.
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© 2002-7 The Complete Work of Charles Darwin
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